Hyderabad: A recently released UNICEF report points out that more than 13 million children below the age of one globally did not receive any vaccines at all in 2018, particularly in countries with weak health systems, while warning that the disruptions in immunisation services caused by the coronavirus outbreak would further lead to “disastrous outbreaks in 2020 and well beyond”.
The report further states that vaccines for diseases such as measles and polio, among others, were already out of reach for 20 million children below the age of one even before the coronavirus outbreak shut down vital immunisation programmes.
“The stakes have never been higher. As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, our life-saving work to provide children with vaccines is critical,” said Robin Nandy, UNICEF Principal Adviser and Chief of Immunization. “With disruptions in immunization services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fates of millions of young lives hang in the balance.”
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The report reveals that it is not just the world’s poorest countries at risk of avoidable disease outbreaks, but widening pockets of unvaccinated children led to alarming measles outbreaks in 2019, including in high-income countries like the US, UK and France.
UNICEF, however, states that the situation was even direr in low-income countries, where there were significant gaps in immunisation coverage rates before Covid-19 hit.
“Between 2010 and 2018, Ethiopia had the highest number of children under one year of age who missed out on the first dose of measles, at nearly 10.9 million. It was followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (6.2 million), Afghanistan (3.8 million), Chad, Madagascar and Uganda with about 2.7 million each,” stated the report.
Across South Asia, an estimated 3.2 million children did not receive any vaccines in 2018.
Prior epidemics and pandemics have often highlighted the importance of maintaining essential immunisation programmes as even brief interruptions of vaccination activities make outbreaks more likely to occur, putting children and other vulnerable groups more at risk of life-threatening diseases.
However, mass immunisation campaigns such as the one on measles have already been suspended in at least 25 countries due to the pandemic and that number will only increase before the outbreak peaks.
